There's so many defects and so many qualities about "Night of the Running Man" that in the end all we get is a bad film that is quite good and a good film that is ridiculously bad. The idea is almost an encounter between "Collateral" and "No Country for Old Men" but without the same dynamism and quality of both films. Dialogs are poorly written and very very simplistic to the point of annoyance, and the situations are predictable, implausible and incredibly unrealistic. It's a very silly movie!Poor Andrew McCarthy suffers hell after finding a suitcase full of money in his cab, left by one of his unusual passengers. It looks like the mob is trying to get back the money and they hired a dangerous hit-man (Scott Glenn) to find it. On one side there's Andrew running away from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and then Los Angeles, and on the other side, Glenn's tactics to find this dumb guy, who seems to be getting really smart after this sudden lucky strike. The most obvious clichés of the world are used here again and again.However, the great surprise of this movie are the villains and their methods of doing their job. Glenn is very effective as the scary guy who kills everybody on his way, the kind of guy who doesn't trust anybody. He's very terrifying. And there's another villain, played by John Glover, who is very scary and because of his torture methods that the film gets interesting (when he puts McCarthy's feet on boiling water to prevent him from running away). That scene alone worths the whole film.But this movie cannot escape of its negative aspects. Fight scenes are badly executed; lots of laughable parts; the amazing fact of a guy who had his feet burned walking on crutches one day later after the incident (at least put him on a wheelchair when walking out of the hospital, then I would believe just a little); the presentation of both major characters are terrible, you don't even have time to relate or care for the hero, he's simply thrown on the screen and we "have" to like him. Uninteresting as an action film or as a thriller, and a little bit funny as a drama, "Night of the Running Man" is good in making us wondering why good actors allow themselves to waste their talents in such a simplistic and dull project where their skills aren't well used. It's not a complete waste of time but when you think of the possibilities of doing better things on a boring day, you won't even feel guilty of missing this, even if you admire the people involved in this. 5/10

Pay TV movie channels seem to be on a recession with the rest of the world and the schedules have lately been filled with rather unknown movies with somewhat known actors, this movie being a prime example. I don't actually mind and I try to catch as many of them as new movies aren't often any better. Every geek who grew up in the 80's knows Andrew McCarthy (who was not in The Breakfast Club btw, as another reviewer said), Scott Glenn is even today in every other movie and the director had a couple of hits in the 80's, so somewhat promising setup.The plot itself is pretty good in all it's simplicity, you have a hit-man chasing a cab driver who took the opportunity to get rich with money which is not his. The chase is on and the scenery changes with a rather nice pace.What doesn't really work, is the leading man McCarthy. I'd say he's just too weary and pathetic and you don't really get a hold of his character. The movie could've benefited from someone a bit more gutsy and charismatic as the lead. At times it feels as if McCarthy and Scott Glenn are in two separate movies, McCarthy in a low budget TV movie and Glenn doing a real movie.As of writing this, I realised it's not even that old a movie. It kind of feels like a movie that was made in the 80's, but it's post-Pulp Fiction afterall. The movie probably just surfaced too late, it might've been more successful in the 80's when you didn't expect thrillers to be bigger than life with a lot of twists and turns. Night of the Running Man is very straightforward stuff.

I've always liked the work of actress Kim Lankford, who starred on the prime-time serial Knots Landing for the first 4 years as Ginger Ward. Therefore, I was pleased to see her turn up for a few minutes playing a waitress who covers for Andrew McCarthy (playing a cab driver on the run from the mob) in "Night of the Running Man." Lankford made the most of her screentime and brought some warmth and humanity to a drab direct-to-video actioner. Therefore, (spoiler coming up ahead, folks), I was thoroughly disgusted with the scene where mob hitman Scott Glenn dangles Lankford's terrified character from high up on a Dam in order to coax McCarthy's whereabouts from her, then drops her to her death. I'm not politically correct by any stretch of the imagination, but I've seen more sensitivity shown towards women in the cinema of Dario Argento, Brian DePalma, and Jess Franco. This was offensive, pointless, disgusting and despicable--and shame on Scott Glenn for participating in such a mean film!

'Night of the Running Man' is not much more than your average direct to video release. The production values are standard, the music or direction isn't anything special, the only thing that actually stands out is the performance by Scott Glenn (Silence of the Lambs). That and the torture scene. The Breakfast Club's Andrew McCarthy plays a Las Vegas cabbie, who discovers a million dollars of cash stashed in her cab. It turns out to be stolen mob money, and he finds that a hired hit man (Glenn) is after the money- and him. You could do a lot worse than to rent this, and a lot better, but considering the miniscule budget the producers had to work with, it is a pretty good actioner, even deserving of a limited theatrical run. Nothing special.5.5/10